The Broken Escalator at Dhoby Ghaut

2018

The broken escalator at Dhoby Ghaut 

Hasn’t been fixed
For weeks on end. 
Walking down the stairs Monday to Friday
Has made me despise that

My slow descent
Is made even slower now. 
Yet, 
You know, I think when 

You see yourself in a bunch of
Failing electric stairs
It really puts on display how sad you can be.

It hides behind temporary walls,
To hide insecurities, worries,
Secrets, and a gaping hole
Where an escalator used to be.

If you replace every part of
An escalator with an identical part,
Is it really the same at heart?

Maybe now and again
We get a listen
From inside, a yell or some drilling
but never a full answer.
I say it’ll be fixed by April 

But who knows if that’s true. 
Of course it’ll eventually be fixed
Only for it to, in all likelihood
Break again

To quote the message on those barriers
“We’re working on it”.

Isaac Tan (Class of 2022) was an LA student from 2017 to 2020. When he’s not hand-delivering cookies to his friends, he’s rolling out film reels like dough and flouring his work surface with words. (Just not baking ingredients because that would be messy.)